Changing the state of a simulated presence sensor

SharpTools.io (web)
1

A long time ago I created 2 simulated presence sensors in the IDE for 2 cell phones because the Smartthings (ST) app doesn’t show the cell phones as a device. I then use Webcore to change the state of the simulated phone to arrived() or departed() based on the presence of the real phones so that I can see the simulated phones states in the ST app, and also use those states for other Webcore pistons. With the coming elimination of Webcore, I’ve been moving (sort of) piston code to Sharptools. One of the advantages I see to Sharptools is it can display the real devices so I don’t really need the simulated devices in a dashboard. However, if I want to continue to see the “phones” in ST, I still need the simulated ones.

Now to my question. I can’t change the state of the simulated device in an action. The only option when I select the device in the action is “ping”. What am I missing and can I do what I would like?

Thanks

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Are you still using the same presence sensor you created in the IDE or have you switched to using an Edge driver?

If you want to switch to edge, Taustin has a presence sensor that you can control in Sharptools. I’ve been using it for a while and it works great.
[ST Edge] vEdge Creator: a virtual device generator for end users

1 Like
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Same sensor as created in the IDE. I’ve been waiting for “officially” released edge drivers. But I guess it’s time to experiment. So thanks for pointing me to this. I will check it out.

I see from the post it does contact. Could I use this driver to run my SmartThings multi-sensor contact, with the axis and open/close based on orientation for a garage door? I only migrated one of my multi-sensors to edge and it seems that functionality is broken, so I had to leave my other multi-sensor on my garage using the old DTH method.

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Taustin’s driver is only for creating virtual devices.

For my SmartThings multi-sensors I’ve been using a driver by Mariano
[Beta] Zigbee Edge Driver compatible with Lidl, Ecosmart, Osram, SmartThings & Others

The channel invite is at the very bottom of the post.

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So I tried out the Mariano driver and almost gave up on it until I realized that I can also adjust the axis. Seems that “upright” and tilting forward is the Y axis, but the default is Z. So now it is working for me.

As for Taustin’s driver, it works and gives me the virtual presence sensor, but in the ST app it also has a power button to turn it on and off (present and not present). Why would it have that feature if being used as a presence sensor? I don’t want to accidentally turn off presence by clicking on the button.

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I’m not sure why he originally added the power button but it’s come home in handy when ST doesn’t trigger correctly.

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I had a similar problem converting to the new edge drivers.
I ended up using Taustin’s driver to create a virtual presence sensor.
I then set the Geo-location in the SmartThings app (from the ‘Manage Locations’ option), and created an automation to set the virtual presence sensor either ‘present’ or ‘not present’. You can then put the virtual presence sensor onto the Sharp Tools dashboard (you can set it to view only if you want to avoid pressing it).
I have been doing this for my wife’s phone and my phone successfully for a two or three weeks now.

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I already had geo-location enabled for my virtual presence sensor to work when I was using Webcore. Now with the migration away from it and the use of Edge drivers, I needed to use Taustin’s driver to create new virtual presence sensors for my wife’s and my phones. Then I created new rules that trigger based on the presence of the real phones. The rule changes the presence of the virtual devices. That is then displayed in my Sharptools dashboard.

Sharptools can display the real phones in the dashboard. The only reason I needed the virtual devices is because SmartThings doesn’t display the real phones. So I needed virtual ones so that I can see the phone’s status in SmartThings.

By the way, my tiles for the virtual presence sensors in Sharptools aren’t clickable, so I didn’t have to set them to view only. On the other hand, the tile in SmartThings for the virtual device does have an on/off button on it.

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The power button was added to allow you to control the present/not present in routines, rules, and sharptools. You can trigger a present/not present event of several different types of presence sensors using SmartThings API but that doesn’t do you any good in Sharptools. I personally us TAustins driver and it works really well, to prevent accidental touches I added them to a separate room.

Perhaps @josh could add the API calls for changing SmartThings VR presence sensor into the rule engine.
Url

https://api.smartthings.com/virtualdevices/{{deviceId}}/events

Body value : present or not present

{
  "deviceEvents": [
    {
      "component": "main",
      "capability": "presenceSensor",
      "attribute": "presence",
      "value": "present"
    }
  ]
}
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I’ve changed my mind. It is convenient that it has a power button in the ST app. If for some reason one of the mobile phones is not giving its presence/not present, I can manually trigger the virtual device so that routines still function.